European All-Electric Politics – When Strategy Becomes a Blindfold

Why the EU’s All-Electric Approach Is a Lesson in Missing Foresight

Summary

The EU set out to make road transport climate-neutral with a radical all-electric strategy — but failed to anticipate the consequences. Now it is forced to backtrack. Three Strategic Campaigning Principles could have helped prevent this mistake: Mindfulness and Foresight, Scenario Thinking, and Persistence and Perseverance in Strategy Implementation.

Strategic Campaigning Principle No. 9 – Mindfulness and Foresight

In campaigning, mindfulness means being aware of the consequences of one’s actions — not only the intended ones, but also the unintended. Foresight means seeing decisions in a broader context and anticipating their long-term implications. Once these two virtues are lost, well-intentioned strategies can easily turn against their own goals. That is precisely what happened in European transport policy.

By committing to an all-electric strategy, the EU locked itself into one single technological pathway to climate neutrality. Other viable solutions — such as renewable synthetic fuels (eFuels) — were sidelined or excluded by regulation. However, the arguments underlying the decisions were neither fact-based nor scientifically supported. Instead, the EU relied on questionable and one-sided publications disguised as studies by green think tanks, whose findings were based on unrealistic assumptions.

The consequences are now painfully visible:

• Hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs are at risk.

• Economic value creation is moving abroad.

• Innovation and competition are being stifled.

• Right-wing populist parties that deny the influence of humans on climate change are gaining influence.

The intentions may have been noble, but the outcome is disastrous. A strategy without mindfulness for its side effects is not strategy — it’s wishful thinking.

Strategic Campaigning Principle No. 12 – Scenario Thinking

Strategic thinking means imagining and analyzing multiple futures: What happens in the best case? The worst? And in all the shades in between?

This is exactly what was missing when the all-electric strategy was conceived. The lobbying network around Hal Harvey, which designed and lobbied for this policy, apparently failed to think through the best-case scenario: What if the EU actually enacted a combustion-engine ban — as it ultimately did — and the economic and political fallout became as severe as it is now?

BEVs‘ share in Germany; © Bild der Wissenschaft Oct 2025

It seems that no one in this network seriously asked what would happen if raw material prices rose, supply chains faltered, consumers resisted or other factors slowed down the transition or if somebody would actively campaign for fact-based policies and the truth on eFuels. True scenario thinking would have revealed early on that an exclusively electric strategy carries enormous risks — economic, social, and political. As job losses mount, public frustration grows — and populist, climate change denying parties gain ground.

Germany illustrates this clearly: the regions where the AfD is strongest are precisely those where the fewest electric cars are sold.

Whoever devised the all-electric strategy surely meant well. But good intentions are not good results — and now, ironically, the main beneficiaries are those who deny climate change and reject scientific reasoning.

While Europe quarrels over ideology, China is playing the long game. It invests simultaneously in electromobility and in the production of eFuels based on green methanol. In doing so, China is positioning itself to dominate both future markets: that of batteries and rare earths — and that of renewable synthetic fuels.  China thinks in centuries. Its planned economy follows a long-term, coherent vision. The West, by contrast, has forgotten how to plan — trapped between ideology and reaction. But it’s even worse… China is following its Moulüe approach, planning strategically for 150 years! Compared to that, the West is looking stupid.

Hybrid Influence: Strategy Beyond Technology

Recent reports, including an investigation by WELT and analyses by the U.S. Department of Defense, suggest that China has been actively shaping Western climate discourse to serve its own industrial and geopolitical goals. Through organisations like the Energy Foundation China (EFC) and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) — both closely linked to state institutions — Beijing has channeled funding into Western environmental organizations that promote rapid electrification. On the surface, these initiatives appear altruistic. But strategically, they increase Western dependency on Chinese technologies — from batteries to solar modules and rare earths — while cementing China’s dominance in the global clean-tech supply chain.

This is a classic case of hybrid strategy: using environmental narratives as geopolitical tools.

While Europe tightens its own regulations and dismantles industrial competitiveness, China benefits twice — economically, by selling the technology, and politically, by weakening its strategic rival. From a campaigning perspective, this development illustrates how narrative framing and agenda-setting can become instruments of influence. The corresponding Strategic Campaigning Principle is No. 2: Control the agenda. It underscores, once again, the importance of the Strategic Campaigning Principles: Mindfulness and Foresight, Control the Agenda, Scenario Thinking, and Persistence and Perseverance in Strategy Implementation. — not only in policy design, but in recognising when others are applying them against us.

Strategic Campaigning Principle No. 6 – Persistence and Perseverance in Strategy Implementation

Persistence means following a strategy steadfastly and mindfully — but not blindly. Perseverance means staying the course without losing the ability to correct it when circumstances change. China exemplifies this: a long-term plan, multiple technological options, clear priorities. The West, however, confused persistence with dogmatism — and trapped itself in a technological monopoly that now inflicts economic and social costs. True strategic perseverance is not about clinging to a failing path, but about recognizing when and how to adjust course — decisively and in time.

Lesson for Strategists: Dogma Is Not Strategy

Strategic campaigning is not an act of faith. It requires mindfulness toward complexity, scenario thinking to explore alternatives, and persistence to implement them consistently. Technology openness embodies this approach in practice: keeping options open rather than ideologically closed, and enabling course correction before damage occurs. Actually,aat this point, yet another Strategic Campaigning Principle comes into play, No. 4: Maintain Flexibility.

Conclusion

Strategies without foresight are like bridges without railings — they may lead to the destination, but perilously close to the edge. Those who anticipate the consequences of their actions, think through scenarios, and pursue strategies with disciplined persistence can avoid mistakes before they happen. The EU’s current change of course may mark the beginning of a new era — one of mindful, technology-open, and strategically far-sighted climate policy. A policy led by strategy, not ideology. Or maybe, this is just wishful thinking. We will know more in December, when the EU Commission will publish their new approach to transport defossilisation.

How often — in politics, business, or daily life — do we act without fully considering the consequences or exploring the alternatives? The Strategic Campaigning Principles are not theory; they are an invitation to think better and act more coherently. Because great strategists are not fortune-tellers — they are mindful visionaries with the persistence to see things through.